


must love dogs

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dogs, M/M, Safehouses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the way to a man's heart is through his 140 pound Great Dane/Rhodesian Ridgeback cross. Too bad Arthur thinks he's the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	must love dogs

“Your dog doesn’t want to go outside,” Arthur tells Eames, making a  _ my hands are tied  _ gesture _.  _

Eames eyes him skeptically. “Of course he does. Rupert’s been in all day.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Arthur is starting to feel a little hostile. “The fucking dog—” 

Behind him, the fucking dog makes a loud wail, putting one pancake sized paw over his massive face. Eames frowns, breezing past Arthur. “Honestly,” he mutters, making his way to the dog. “Don’t be sad, buddy, Arthur didn’t mean it.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “I’m just saying, your dog doesn’t want to go out in the snow. It’s not that unusual.”

Eames lets out a long breath through his mouth. “Arthur. Please keep your eye on the pot on the stove and reduce it to a simmer when it starts to boil.” He turns a much more pleasant gaze on the dog. “Come on, Rupe, let’s go take a slash.” 

Arthur watches Eames’ back as the dog prances circles around him on the way to the back door. He looks like a completely different dog than he’d been when Arthur had tried to take him out. 

When he’d shown up yesterday, Eames had introduced the two of them, calling Arthur his friend, and the dog a  _ great dane and ridgeback cross,  _ which Arthur now knows is shorthand for  _ some kind of monster _ .

He hasn’t asked Eames if the dog is part of his cover or why the hell the dog is even there because he’s the one who’s overstepped, encroached on Eames’ territory uninvited. And certainly, as sometimes-coworkers, they’re hardly privy to each other’s personal lives. Instead, so far he’s primarily used Eames’ shower to help thaw out his bones and then negotiated (humiliatingly) with Eames’ monster dog to get him outside when Eames asked him to. Now, he watches the pot. 

Eames comes back in with his massive prancing dog, shaking his hand through his hair. “Of course he didn’t want to go out,” Eames accuses, “you didn’t put his shoes on.”

“What —” Arthur says, before he looks at Eames’ smirking face. “Oh, fuck off.”

When Arthur had tried to shepherd him outside, he’d planted himself with a wide enough stance that there was no budging him. He’d seemed gruff and a little menacing, hackles raised, but now he throws himself down on the floor in front of Eames, twisting like a worm on his back, all four enormous limbs paddling at the air in front of him, tongue lolling out of the side of his head. 

The two-faced little shit.

*

The snow is piled high outside, falling fast. There’s the tense, knife-edge possibility of a blizzard on the horizon, which is what made him take a one hour drive to where he happened to know Eames had a hideout.

He hadn’t known he’d be using it. Hadn’t known he’d step aside for him, either, asking nothing from him except that he take the inexplicably present horse of a dog outside while he finished cooking dinner. Arthur had hardly been in a position to say no. 

Eames is bundled up, even indoors and with the little corner furnace chugging along. Arthur keeps his scarf on. The central room seems to be the only one even marginally heated. 

“Thanks for letting me crash here,” he says. 

“What happened?”

“I’m done working with fucking Charlie Hudson, that’s what happened,” Arthur seethes. 

“Charlie!” Eames says, and he sounds surprised and delighted. 

Arthur scowls at him. 

“Charlie’s a good bloke,” Eames elaborates, grinning. “No one better if you’re headed to Tijuana to blow off steam. He’s not someone I’d expect you to invite on a job.”

“I didn’t hear anything negative about him,” Arthur says, still annoyed. “Or put the job together. Alicia favors him.”

“If the job hadn’t gone tits up,” Eames says, shrugging, “and you’d made it to the unwind on the beach stage, you wouldn’t have anything to say about him either.”

“That’s bullshit,” Arthur says. “He’s getting two stars.”

Eames cranes his neck to try to get a look at Arthur’s phone. “Is there a dreamshare Yelp?”

“No,” Arthur says primly, pushing him back with an elbow to the neck. “But the next time someone calls me about him, I’ll have a few pages of detailed notes about his performance for them.”  

Eames jostles back towards him, as pushy as the idiot dog. Arthur is half surprised Eames doesn’t push his face into his hand. “Let me see my page,” he says. 

“No Eames,” Arthur says, sliding his phone back into the pocket of his trousers. “If the power goes out, I’ll want to have as much battery as possible.”

“You’ve got pages of notes on me,” Eames seems to decide, smug, instead of calling him out on his blatant hypocrisy. “You don’t have the battery life for me to read my reams.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “I don’t need notes on you,” he says. 

“Delectable arse, steel trap mind, unusual but fascinating taste in menswear. And womenswear. To be honest, duck, I’m sometimes a man of many hats,” Eames says, rattling off his own list of best qualities blithely.

“Terrible in any dream that requires any sort of interaction with farm animals,” Arthur corrects. “Unlikely to offer any explanation about his forgery choices. Massive ego. Not great with math past college level algebra. Refuses to take anything seriously...”

Eames is frowning now, and Arthur will admit, perhaps he’d gone too far. He’d only meant to tease him. “Already has a secret back-up plan when everything goes to shit,” he says, “intuitive doesn’t even begin to cover it. And if he’s vain, it’s probably because he has more than a few reasons to be.”

Eames looks faintly pleased. “Darling,” he says. “You gave me four stars, didn’t you?”

*

Eames dog is easily a hundred and fifty pounds. 

“Is there anything else you could complain about,” Eames finally demands through gritted teeth, when Arthur points it out, the second time the dog has knocked him flat on his ass. “Something less personal, like my dyslexia, or the size of my dick? Go back to your shit list.”

“That’s your dog,” Arthur says blankly. 

“No shit,” Eames says. 

“You’re more or less living here,” Arthur says.

“More or less,” Eames confirms. 

“With Rupert. Your dog.” 

“And we have a guest,” Eames says, looking at him pointedly. 

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says. 

“I’m not the one who deserves an apology,” Eames says. 

Eames dog is giving him sad eyes. It’s paper-thin. The fact that Eames can’t see that he is clearly a villain speaks to his judgement. 

“Dog,” Arthur says, addressing the animal in question. Eames clears his throat, and Arthur grudgingly corrects himself. “Rupert. I have been a terrible houseguest. Can you forgive me?”

Arthur has been looking at Rupert, who he hardly has to angle his head down to address, but at the end of his question, he cuts his eyes up at Eames, looking at him from beneath his eyebrows. 

Eames is stony faced until he relents. “Rupe,” he says, grinning. “Go fetch the treats. Arthur is going to give you one.” 

Rupert is gone in a flash, long claws making a clattering sound down the length of the house, and he returns with a box in his massive jaws. Until he’d seen them stretched wide around four pounds of dog treats, he hadn’t been quite so aware of the fact that could probably swallow Arthur’s hand up to the middle of his forearms without having any particular trouble.

Eames is beaming at him. At both of them, actually. Arthur takes the corner of the box gingerly at his encouraging nod. The box is freshly damp. Arthur manfully resists the urge to wince and go wash his hands, putting his finger under the cardboard flap instead. “Here you go,” he says, holding a three inch dog biscuit with two fingers. 

And holds it. 

“Arthur,” Eames sighs, as if he has gravely disappointed him. “Rupert is  _ nine years old, _ ” he explains. “He has  _ soft old man teeth. _ ” 

Arthur saw him last night chomp his way through an entire carrot Eames had tossed for him. He has also already witnessed Rupert throw himself writing at Eames feet in desperation for belly rubs. Of all of his problems, Arthur doubts that the brittle health of old age is among them. 

“Your dog brought me the biscuits,” Arthur says. “I didn’t pick the fucking things out.”

Eames mimes snapping something in half, so that’s what Arthur does. “Smaller,” Eames whispers. As far as Arthur can tell, there is no reason for the ridiculous secrecy unless Eames fancies he is giving Arthur insider information. He dutifully breaks the large treat into tiny little bites, holding each one out with trepidation. 

“Nice mouth,” Eames encourages, “be gentle with our friend.” 

It takes fourteen pieces to finish the biscuit, but by the end, Eames declares them friends. 

“Okay,” Arthur says. 

Eames gives him a meaningful look. 

“Now that that’s taken care of,” Eames says.  _ Meaningfully _ .

“What the hell, Eames?”

Eames huffs out in exasperation. “Bloody hell, Arthur, I am attempting to make a move on you.” 

“As seduction attempts go,” Arthur says, and then trails off. 

“A little dog centric for your taste,” Eames says. “Noted. If you’d gotten along from the get go, I wouldn’t have had to start at ground zero.” 

Arthur pulls out his phone, and subvocalizes as he types in his notepad. “Generous with his use of his Norway safe-house. Favors a romantic approach that includes dogs. Unusually, but potentially worthwhile.” 

“Potentially,” Eames repeats. 

“I’m about to find out,” Arthur says, and sets his phone on the counter nearby. He tries to make his posture as open as possible. Of course, his new best friend Rupert sees this as an invitation, and moves towards him, pressing the length of his body against Arthur’s like a slow but heavy and poorly behaved table. Arthur tamps down the first thing he thinks of, and then the second, to say instead, “Hey there.” 

He touches the side of him, coarse black hair under his hand, trying to engage with him without getting collecting the grimy dog-film on his hand that Eames always seems to be wearing. 

Eames, for what it’s worth, is beaming. Arthur takes a little more of an active role in the petting process. “My boys,” Eames says, and Rupert’s tail goes wild. Rupert, Arthur has noticed, looks at Eames like he would give him five out of five stars on Dreamshare Yelp, so they do have that in common. 

Just as Arthur is feeling at the pinnacle of camaraderie for the dog, Eames leans in close to talk to him in a low tone: “Rupe. Papa’s got to take care of some business, so I’m going to turn the heater on and leave you a steak in the basement. How does that sound?”

Eames, as Arthur knows from years of compiling on him, might not be open to talking about his processes, but never leaves anything unfinished; Arthur finds that he doesn’t mind being referred to as “business”. 

It doesn’t take long for Eames to reappear. 

“Where was I,” Eames asks, voice strangely lacking the permanently self-assured quality that Arthur dreaded before he came to realize how well-founded it was. 

“You were vying for that fifth star,” Arthur says.

“A lofty goal,” Eames says, and comes to him, slow, so slow, to blur his mouth against Arthur’s. Arthur’s brain stutters to a stop, the constant whirr of it settling into silence. Frankly, it’s better than any anti-anxiety cocktail he’s ever had. 

Eames’ lower lip is plush between his own. Outside, it is snowing hard and heavy and somewhere a horse masquerading as a dog is barking. Arthur sighs, mind drifting pleasantly even if his body is as tied in as it’s ever been, with Eames flush against his chest, an inch or two shorter than him, but somehow a perfect fit. Arthur’s neck is warm and tingling as Eames drags his fingertips across the skin there. 

“Let me,” Eames says, touching with his nose after his fingertips; Arthur tips his head to let him kiss there. One hand has crept into the back of Eames’ trousers, so his fingertips are resting against the dimples in Eames’ back. 

“I am letting you,” he says, trying to hide his smile. He’s not sure how much he’s going to  _ let Eames,  _ because he kind of likes to take these things slow, collect new data at each checkpoint before he figures out how to proceed, but right now, pinned between Eames and the kitchen counter, he’s having a good time.

“Good,” Eames says, seemingly content to kiss the hell out of him. It’s been a stressful year, and longer since someone’s full attention has felt this unhurried. 

“I,” Arthur says, faltering. Eames pauses with his soft lips against Arthur’s collar, and makes a questioning noise. “You already had it.”

“What’s that, dear?” Eames says. 

Arthur can feel the playful curve of his mouth against the side of his neck. It’s not quite a full-fledged smile, but Arthur feels the need to help it blossom into one. He swallows his pride and says: “A glowing review. I’ve told dozens of people that they’d be morons not to hire you, no matter what kind of cut you demanded.”

“Is that so,” Eames says, the vain, preening creature. And fuck it if that doesn’t sound fond in Arthur’s head. 

“Yeah,” he says, “Arthur’s Dreamshare Referrals, five out of five, would work with again.”

“What about kissing?” Eames asks. 

“Same rating,” Arthur equivocates. “I'd be unlikely to refer you out, though.” 

Eames beams like he’s made some sort of grand declaration. Perhaps — Arthur thinks, touching a strand of hair that’s come away from the rest at Eames’ forehead and brushing it back into place — perhaps he has. 


End file.
